


What is Fire to a Rock?

by okemmelie



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: F/M, late night writing only, we make bad choices and publish them anyway in this house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21675856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okemmelie/pseuds/okemmelie
Summary: Sam snores and Charlotte can't sleep. Ted's still up.
Relationships: Charlotte/Sam (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals), Charlotte/Ted (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32





	What is Fire to a Rock?

**Author's Note:**

> i'm writing too many longer things lately so this was a nice break but most of it's been written between midnight and 1 am so lksdfsdjf

The sheets are cold and the body beside her unmoving, outside of a few breaths every now and then. Sam used to be a cuddler, but now he just goes to sleep. Work is hard, he tells her over dinner. Sometimes he doesn’t even come home for dinner. Then he’ll tell her as he passes her in the hallway, ignoring her open arms and heading straight for bed rather than embracing her. Kissing her. Sleeping with her.  _ Loving _ her. All the things he used to do now is no more and it’s fine, because work is hard and she doesn’t want to be a bother.

She’s under the covers and he is too, and they’re close together but they’re far apart. He’s on the edge of the bed and she’s in the middle and it’s far. Too far. She wants to reach out for him, but she’s tried in the past and she knows his rejection will only make her feel like they’re even further from each other. There really is no winning and she knows it. She hates that she knows it. She tries to forget.

Sleep doesn’t find her. It finds him and she listens to his snores and she’s annoyed. She wasn’t always annoyed. She remembers finding his snoring adorable and she remembers staying up late just to listen to it, being so happy to have him and to be in his arms. She still stays up late, but now it’s because she’s annoyed and overthinking and can’t fall asleep.

Sam is a rock.  _ Her  _ rock, she tries to tell herself. But then she goes back to settling on just a generic rock, but a rock that just so happens to be in her – well,  _ their _ – bedroom. She knows what to expect from him and he never surprises her anymore and she knows where she has him and she can rationalize staying with him in a million ways. He’s a rock and an anchor and the one steady thing in her life, and having a rock is better than having nothing.

But there are other covers and other beds and other adventures to explore. There are other men. Men who aren’t rocks. Rocks are good, she tells herself. But Charlotte craves excitement and rocks aren’t exciting.

Ted is exciting. He’s the furthest from a rock she’s ever met. She never knows where she has him, but she likes it like that. His body is warm and he lets her feel it, feel him. They share the occasional kiss in the breakroom when no one else is there and they share so much more when they’re alone in Ted’s bedroom. They’re never not touching and they’re never cold.

It’s late and it’s a bad idea, but she’s given up on falling asleep and she’s just so cold and so bored with rocks, so she gets up. Puts on a jacket. And drives. Drives to Ted’s apartment complex and parks her car outside and knocks without warning him she’s coming.

He opens the door anyway. He always does. He asks her if she’s aware of how late it is. She tells him she is. He asks her what she’s doing up at this hour. She asks him the same. He kisses her and she kisses him back, and his lips burns against hers in a way Sam’s hasn’t in a long time and she smiles.

Then Ted takes her to his bedroom. He throws her out as soon as they’re done.

No, Ted is certainly no rock. Ted is a flame. And no one ever told Charlotte not to play with fire.


End file.
